Biblical History and Cultural Memory

Since we now know that very many biblical images of the past (patriarchs, exodus, wandering, conquest, perhaps David and Solomon, too) are not authentic ones, it is our responsibility to discover how better to describe them, which means understanding what their real purpose is.

Cultural
or collective memory (also known as “social memory”) has become a
major issue of the last fifty years in several fields. The concept
originated within sociology but has more recently taken in psychology
and history (see especially Zerubavel E, 2003; Zerubavel Y., 2005) to
become an interdisciplinary area of investigation (see Middleton and
Edwards, 1990). Its particular value is in its recognition not only
that “the past” is always something created rather than simply
recorded but also that recollection serves to create and sustain
identity. Thus, while the effect of memory is to reproduce the past,
its function is in truth orientated towards the present, to which the
past is constantly adjusting itself (or to the future, when identity
determines action).

Cultural
memory has recently been applied to biblical studies and especially
to the biblical narratives about the past. I have made use of it in a
couple of recent books (Davies 2007, 2008), but the dangers in using
the term are almost as great as its advantages. Indeed, nearly all
the issues can be related to the term itself.

Definition

Let
me begin with “memory.” This word for most people implies the
recollection of something that happened. Much the same is true of the
once popular (and still widely-used) term “tradition” to refer to
biblical narratives about the past. But just as folklore studies have
shown how easily “tradition” can be invented, so scientific
studies of both individual and collective memory have shown that this
too is subject to invention and revision (Middleton and Edwards
supply a very good description). The process of conjuring up an image
of the past (as we should always think of it) is affected by both
personal and social identities. This fact should be fairly obvious:
without memory one can have no sense of identity, only of being or
self, but just as images of the past provide identity, so one’s
changing identity modifies one’s images of the past. Anyone who has
revisited places known from the past or discussed past events with
others who also witnessed them can verify how deceitful memory can
be.

So
“memory” is the right term, precisely because as a cultural
process it replicates individual memory. It is, of course, also a
part of individual memory: only individuals can actually
conjure up images of the past. Collective memories have to be
embedded in individuals. But the sense in which societies can be
legitimately said to “remember” has been well illustrated by
Connerton, who draws our attention, among other things, to learned
habits of behavior, including rituals, as ways in which such
“memories” are literally “incorporated.”

The
role of cultural memory in shaping ethnic identity has already been
well explored (Assmann 1992 has been particularly influential), and
particularly in the case of ancient Jewish identity (Mendels 2004,
Mendels [ed.] 2007; Yerushalmi, 1996). The creation of the State of
Israel is itself the culmination of centuries of Jewish memory: the
memory of expulsion (which is itself a creation since the Jewish
diaspora was created largely by voluntary migration) and the “memory”
of an ancient occupation that no individual ever experienced. Indeed,
the major (perhaps the only) unifying element in “Judaism” is the
appropriation of a Jewish memory, an act that transcends religious
and non-religious Jews.

This
brings me to the term “cultural.” Is it preferable to
“collective” or “social” memory? Each of the terms is
appropriate, but emphasizes a different aspect. I personally prefer
“cultural” because it points to the role of memory in
shaping identity, rather than an opposition to “individual.” But
while all these terms are appropriate, none of them should be too
narrowly construed. Shared memory can belong to groups of all
sizes—married couples, families, gangs, classes, professions,
neighborhoods, clubs, nations, religious communities. And of course
between “individual” and “collective” memory there is no
strict opposition. Indeed, Halbwachs maintained that individual
memory was actually impossible; unaided by others we could not
construct a sequential narrative at all, only isolated incidents with
an imperfect chronological context. Whether or not he is correct (and
he use dreams as his main argument against individual memory), every
individual’s identity comprises not only personal images but also
those shared between members of a group. As individuals, our identity
is largely made up by the groups we belong to. Never mind the genes!

Cultural
Memory and “Biblical History”

What
is the value of “cultural memory” to the biblical historian?
First, it introduces a concept that has both an empirical and
theoretical body of knowledge. The same might be said, it is true, of
“tradition,” but “tradition” as such confined to folklore
studies, and the scope for empirical investigation of folklore is
much more restricted than it is to individual and group memory. We
should not simply use cultural memory as a more modish name for
“tradition” (as does Smith, 2004).

A
second value of cultural memory is to focus the attention of the
biblical historian (should we retain that word?) on the memory itself
rather than the event it conjures. Since we now know that very many
biblical images of the past (patriarchs, exodus, wandering, conquest,
perhaps David and Solomon, too) are not authentic ones, it is our
responsibility to discover how better to describe them, which means
understanding what their real purpose is. The old dichotomies of
“history” vs. “fiction” or “truth” vs “falsehood” are
obsolete and never were appropriate to an authorship who lacked
reliable access to knowledge of the past). Certainly, historians of
ancient Palestine still want and need to know what “really
happened” because without that knowledge we cannot evaluate the
memories themselves. But since the biblical memories contain
sometimes events that occurred and sometimes things that did not
happen (and things that did happen, but differently), “historicity”
cannot any longer be any issue of principle: the Bible cannot
be “true” or “false” any more than human memory can be: we
can only consider each memory on its merits—and in the case of
biblical memories, these are usually unverifiable.

Third,
cultural memory forces us to focus on the identity (and
self-identity) of the group to which the memory belongs. The
realization that many different groups in antiquity claimed the
identity “Jew” or the name “Israel” points to the
multiplicity of competing memories, and many of these are represented
in the biblical accounts of the past. This in part explains their
inconsistencies, for while inconsistency is bad history, it may be
very good cultural memory in amalgamating different group
“recollection” (A good example is the independent but parallel
memories of Ezra and Nehemiah combined into a single episode.) One
such amalgamation is the nation “Israel” itself, which has a
political counterpart only in a kingdom known by that name (among
others) but a religious counterpart in the adherents of the cult of
Yahweh (variously defined). The historian’s task is not to try and
chase the chimera of a fictitious 12-tribe “nation” (“ancient
Israel”) but to identify the groups to which the identity of
“Israel” attached (including Samaria). We also need to study the
mechanisms by which influential groups can impose their own memories
on others, or share them: instances of the former abound in medieval
and modern Europe. How did the biblical texts, the products of a
small elite (or various elites), come to be accepted as the memories
of an entire ethnos? Through the canonizing of the scriptures?
Through public ritual (synagogues)? Through an education system?
Through the spread of literacy? And how long did this process take?

Finally,
and most importantly, the phenomenon of cultural memory can be
applied not only to ancient biblical writers but modern biblical
scholars. Most of us have the biblical narrative as part of our own
cultural memory, if for no other reason than we heard the stories as
children and celebrate them at every Christmas and Easter. Most of us
have no problem with celebrating events that we know or suspect did
not really happen—Catholic or Hispanic or Asian Americans can
celebrate the initial “Thanksgiving” of New England Puritans. But
some cannot accept that their memories do not correspond to what
really happened. Partly the issue has to do with the kind of
religious sensibilities that the individual scholar has, or his/her
denominational affiliation. By and large, the issue does have
to do with religion (usually a belief that biblical memories have to
be infallible) rather than with a methodology of doing history. But
religious belief is not the sole issue. For it is still the common
popular view that the Bible relates real events, and this belief is
the result of complacency, laziness, and poor education about the
Bible among those for whom biblical scholarship is alien (this
includes a few of my university colleagues). Nevertheless, among
biblical scholars, we should recognize that the major differences in
evaluation of biblical narratives between “conservatives” and
“radical” (or whatever the terms) can nearly always be identified
with the role and importance of the biblical story as part of
contemporary Jewish or Christian cultural memory.

Hence,
“Memories of Ancient Israel,” as I titled my last book, has a
double meaning: it is both about the memories that ancient groups
possessed (and often created) about “Israel” but also about our
own cultural memories of that “Israel.” We should ask ourselves
whether the “facts” themselves—which are few and fragile and
contested enough—have very much significance compared with the
memories on which people’s identities and their actions depend.
What happened in the past can certainly contribute to who we are now,
but what we think happened is far more significant; rather
than discount it as bad history, the historian should pay careful
attention to it, because it contains the key to most human action.